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Thursday, April 6, 2017

atmosphere in turmoil... (pm.06.apr.17)>

Thursday's stats:Low temp: 50.9F (10.5C)High temp: 66.0F (18.9C)Rainfall: 1.34" (3.4cm)-- updated @ 7:50pmIt's dreary and gloomy and gray out there at sunset this evening, thanks to totally cloudy skies. What a day it has been... with two main periods of significant rain and thunderstorms. The first one was left over from thunderstorms which got going last night around 9:00pm -- lasting until just before sunrise. And the second round hit during the mid- to late afternoon hours, with some small hail, extremely gusty winds, and the kind of darkness which is rare during the daytime. The rainfall amount since midnight (stats above) was pretty much equally split between those two episodes. In between, there was a period of sunshine and a surge of milder air which gave us a high temp a few degrees warmer than expected.This storm system is being driven by an upper-level circulation which is now centered midway between Kabul and Islamabad -- not too far from Peshawar, Pakistan. It's a particularly intense one for early April, but is now, finally, showing signs of weakening as it begins to encounter the higher Himalayan ranges. Still, we are going to be experiencing the lingering effects of this system through tomorrow (FrI), with the likelihood of a few more pulses of shower/thunder development, along with some gusty winds at times. The colder air is also finally making it down to our elevation, so there is still a chance of some snowfall accumulation in the vicinity of Triund during the coming 24 hours or so. I really hope not... for the sake of people who are milling around up there.Major improvement is expected on Saturday, with a fairly robust warm-up expected as we move through the first half of next week. There could be some PM mountain thunder on Saturday, but I think we should see our atmosphere stabilize nicely as we try to move toward something much more typical for April...